Long ride out of town...

There was a layoff at the Reynold's Metal factory and about the same time the University of Louisville was buying up the houses in the neighborhood so they could expand. Mom and dad sold their house (they paid $4,000 for it).


They had Mayflower come box everything up. But they were running out of room so I had to choose only one toy to take with me. Dang it. It was hard to choose between my big yellow dump truck which I played with the absolute most and my doll which my sister played with the absolute most. What to do? So I left the dump truck and brought the doll. I had the impression mom was mad about that. I think she wanted me to take the dump truck so she could give Barbara my doll-later she could say that I didn't choose it so I must not have wanted it. I played with that doll clear through to the 6th grade. I never had a Barbie doll-just my curly short blonde haired doll.

Then we rode the train all the way to California. We'd walk from our train car to the dining car and sometimes would get stuck and have to wait in the cramped cold area between cars. At one point mom drew my attention to the hole in the floor where you could see the ground rushing by. Needless to say I was terrified. I seem to remember my dad teasing about I might just fall through the hole. Mom was overly worried that the floor was too thin there, corroding perhaps, and that falling through was a real possibility and maybe he'd better layoff the talk so I wouldn't actually try it.

We were going to get our family picture taken. We had just moved to California and were staying in an apartment while dad looked for a job. We didn't live too far from Grandma Flint nor from the beach. One day I went for a walk with dad and Bob. We saw a dead seal washed up on the beach. Dad said, "I guess that's why this place is called Seal Beach."

The night before our picture was taken I had slept very deep and peaceful. I dreamed of getting up and going to the bathroom. I never did. I should have. I wet the bed and even while it was coming out I could feel it and know it was happening but I couldn't stop it. For the picture mom told me not to smile with my mouth open-the photographer got me smiling so wide I couldn't help myself. I don't think mama was very happy with me.

While in Seal Beach Chipper wandered off once and got lost. He ended up at the police station. They were feeding him chocolate.

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